


break me like a promise

by avengercarol



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bittersweet Ending, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 23:47:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18648583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avengercarol/pseuds/avengercarol
Summary: It had been two months since he figured out that Steve was never coming back. Two months since he had hugged Steve goodbye and watched as he stepped onto the platform to be transported through time to the return the stones to their rightful place. Two months since Steve, a different Steve, an older Steve, had appeared, not through the quantum realm but as a result of the experiences of a new life, a life that he would never be a part of.  Two months since Steve passed the Captain America mantle to Sam while he had stood there, pulse pounding in his ears, hoping the earth would open and pull him under. Two months since he had walked away from that bench, never turning around, never giving Steve a chance to explain.Bucky always knew he would never be worthy of Steve, but he definitely never thought Steve would prove him right.





	break me like a promise

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place post-Endgame and contains major spoilers for the movie.

Two months.

It had been two months since he felt himself disintegrating from the fight around him and turning to nothing, and it had been two months since he had rematerialized on the Wakandan battlefield and been magically transported to a different battlefield for the same war. 

It had been two months since he figured out that Steve was never coming back. Two months since he had hugged Steve goodbye and watched as he stepped onto the platform to be transported through time to the return the stones to their rightful place. Two months since Steve, a different Steve, an older Steve, had appeared, not through the quantum realm but as a result of the experiences of a new life, a life that he would never be a part of. Two months since Steve passed the Captain America mantle to Sam while he had stood there, pulse pounding in his ears, hoping the earth would open and pull him under. Two months since he had walked away from that bench, never turning around, never giving Steve a chance to explain.

Bucky always knew he would never be worthy of Steve, but he definitely never thought Steve would prove him right. 

In the time since half the universe’s population had been revived after turning to dust, things around him seemed to move slowly, in a daze. Bucky felt like he was living in a dream, not in control of his body, just going through the motions, but surely everyone else had the same feeling, right? Then he realized that everyone around him seemed happy. People were reuniting with friends, family, lovers, and feeling a sense of pure joy that had been nonexistent for five years. No one else had to die, for the second time, only to come back and have their best friend since childhood send himself back in time because there was no way he could be happy in the twenty first century. That was only Bucky’s problem.

He thought a lot about the exhibit in the Smithsonian he had seen when he first started remembering who he was, when he remembered that he was a person and not just a machine or an asset. He thought about the display with his picture on it. The one that read, “Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield.” He thought about the words that Steve had told him to break him out of seventy years’ worth of brainwashing and pain and torture. The words he had first told Steve after Sarah Rogers’s funeral. The words he had meant, but Steve so obviously had not.

‘Til the end of the line. And what an end it had been.

Bucky saw it coming from the moment Steve had volunteered to take the stones back. It was not the fact that Steve was incapable of being the one to return them or that Steve had not been known for his heroics; it was the fact that there had to someone else that was able to do it. He figured Carol Danvers would probably have been a good choice, given there was no way she wasn’t worthy of lifting Thor’s weird hammer, which seemed to be the biggest concern for choosing who was to make the trip. Based on that alone, Thor should have been the one to go, but Steve was the first to bravely suggest that he should be the one to make the journey, and all the remaining Avengers followed his lead, like they always had. Only Bucky had been able to see Steve’s hidden motivation, because Steve had never, ever been able to hide anything from Bucky, even though Bucky was able to hide everything from him. 

So, Steve went back in time, returning all six stones and Mjolnir to their respective times and avoiding messing up the timeline in the process. Bruce and Sam watched with blissful ignorance, in Bucky’s opinion, as Steve did not appear on the platform, and Bucky turned around and started walking away because he knew Steve would not be coming home to them. Then he saw someone sitting on a bench and realized he would be unable to just pretend Steve had vanished into a separate timeline, never to be seen again. He called Sam’s name and urged him to go talk to this unknown person who looked a lot like an older version of Steve but would never be his Steve. He tried his hardest to look happy, but he knew he could not talk to the new Steve, the older Steve, the Steve that did not want or need Bucky in his life.

He walked away. It was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life, but he walked away. Sam called his name first, then Bruce, but Steve, not his Steve, said nothing.

-

When Sam caught up to him a few moments later, he didn’t say anything, did not know what there even was to say at that point. 

Even before the snap, Bucky had already felt like he lost everything. He lost his freedom after the first time he had been taken by Hydra, before Steve had shown up and rescued him from that table, and then again after he fell off the train into a snowy ravine, only to be taken by them again. He lost his memories every time Hydra wiped his mind. He lost days, months, years, and decades when they put him in cryofreeze. He lost his friends and family and teammates to old age despite the fact that he himself only looked a few years. He lost and lost and lost and lost and-

None of that mattered because he had Steve. Then Steve decided he did not matter, and Steve decided to leave him, and Steve decided to go play house with a woman he barely knew back in the 1940s when the only people with basic human rights were straight, white men and there was no Internet and no Netflix and no Bucky. Well there was a Bucky, but he was too busy getting his brain turned to mush to have time for much else. 

Bucky could not stop thinking about Steve. He could hear Sam yelling at him, but he was not listening. There was nothing anyone could say to him that would make him okay, and he was unsure if he even wanted to be okay or if he just wanted to find somewhere he could cry until he could no longer breathe and could no longer feel anything and could no longer remember why he was so upset.

Sam must have had some revelation by the time he caught up to Bucky, because he did not say anything about Steve and had not said anything about Steve since. It had been two months, and no one even thought about mentioning Steve if Bucky was around. Bucky had not even heard his name whispered. 

-

At some point between Tony Stark’s funeral and their present day, Bucky and Sam decided to move in together. They rented an apartment in Brooklyn because Bucky refused to even imagine living anywhere else now that he had his official, government stamped pardon and was free to do as he pleased. Bucky was not sure where Steve was living, did not think to ask. He assumed that he probably had children or grandchildren that were still living and wondered if he was staying with them or if they had put him in a nursing home. He did not allow himself to wonder if any of them had been named after him.

Living with Sam was interesting because, well, they had never really been the best of friends before they were dusted from existence, but with Steve turning himself into an old man, Wanda moving in with Clint’s family, and Natasha sacrificing herself for the soul stone, they were all each other had left. It should have seemed like they were forced together, but it felt more like a makeshift family every day.

Except today. Except today because apparently Steve was dying. Except today because apparently Steve was dying, and his dying wish was told talk to Bucky.

And Bucky still did not, under any circumstances, want to talk to Steve. 

He was not even mad at Steve. He was not jealous that Steve got to go back to his time, their time, and live a happy life. He was not jealous that Steve was able to reunite with the Howling Commandos and Bucky’s own family despite the fact that they all died thinking Bucky fell off a moving train in the Alps. He was not upset that every link he had to his past was gone and now he was the man out of time.

Sam did not believe that though. 

“He was your best friend for 90 years,” Sam started, “and now you won’t even listen to what he has to say?”

Bucky did not answer. He did not want to be having this discussion. He wanted to continue ignoring Sam, ignoring Steve’s existence, ignoring everything. Sam would not let that happen.

“He went against the government for you. He spent two years running across the world looking for you. He became a fugitive for you, and you’re just going to sit on your ass, waiting for him to die, so you can pretend he isn’t real?” Sam continued.

Bucky knew he could not tell Sam the real reason he refused to see Steve. The reason Steve’s choice hurt so much. The reason he had spent the past two months hoping he would wake up in Wakanda and realize everything had just been a bad dream. So, he panicked and gave the first bullshit excuse that came to mind.

“Sorry that I’m finding it hard to befriend the person who knew I was being tortured and didn’t do anything about it.”

It was a low blow, and he knew it. Sam knew it, too.

“I asked Scott and Bruce about time travel and how they knew they wouldn’t be ruining the present time when they first went back. They told me that going to the past doesn’t affect the future, it just creates a new timeline, so even if Steve did try to save you, it would’ve been an alternate you,” Sam explained.

That hurt more than Bucky expected it to, knowing that even if Steve did care about him enough to try to change what happened, it would have no impact on his life. There would just be a new Bucky wandering around some new timeline, being happy and not hurting. It did not make sense, because how could changing the past not change the future, but it still hurt.

Bucky could not let his façade down now that he had committed to it, though. He took a deep breath and said, “Even if Steve tried to save me? So we agree that he didn’t actually bother to try?” 

“Shut the hell up. Look, I get that it’s probably hard to watch someone else get to live what you wanted, but you should be happy that Steve got to live a great life. He deserved it.”

“I never said he didn’t deserve it or that I wanted it.”

Sam just stared at him. “Then why can’t you be happy for him, or even listen to whatever it is that he wants to tell you?”

“He didn’t give me an explanation when he went back to the past, I don’t need to give him one now,” Bucky didn’t know what he was really saying, he just knew he had to get words out of his mouth. 

“Bucky, I don’t know to get you to understand this, but Steve’s dying. Actually dying. Not ‘crashing a plane into the ocean only to be recovered later’ dying or ‘turning to dust’ dying, but ‘heart stops beating, funeral is being planned’ dying, and all he wants is to talk to you,” Sam pleaded.

A funeral was being planned. That meant Steve had a family, a family Bucky would never be a part of.

“If he wants to talk to someone, he can talk to his new family. He chose them before, now he can choose them again.”

“Is that what this is about?” Sam asked. “You’re jealous that Steve had a wife and kids while you’re still single? I’m sure you could find a girl out there, if you stopped with the whole serial killer look you have going on.”

Bucky knew he had to stop talking before he said something he would regret. If only his brain to mouth filter had gotten the message. “No, I’m not jealous that he had a family. That’s not the problem.”

“Then please tell me what the problem is! I’ll tell Steve that the only person he wants to talk to won’t speak to him ever again if you give me a reason!” 

Bucky needed to shut up. He really needed to shut up. “Because I was in love with him! Tell him that!”

Shit. That was not what he was supposed to say. No one was ever supposed to know that, not Sam and most definitely not Steve. Never Steve.

“I didn’t mean-“ Bucky tried to say.

Sam interrupted before he could finish. “How long?”

Bucky just sighed, not wanting to explain. He had no idea how to explain the when and how of his love for Steve Rogers. Well, he was unsure of the when, because the truth was that he had always been in love him. There was no profound moment of realization, just a feeling that had been there since the first day they met as kids. He supposed that meant it was love at first sight. The how was easier to explain. There was no way for him not to love Steve. He was Bucky’s savior, both figuratively and literally. When they were teenagers in Brooklyn, trying to scrape by during the Depression, Steve made life worth living. When they both found themselves in the modern day, Steve had risked his life time and time again in order to protect Bucky, and Bucky had been unable to pay Steve back for all the miracles he brought with him every time Bucky was in trouble.

He thought staying away from Steve, new Steve, old Steve, not his Steve, would be the best way to pay him back. He knew that he had no place in this Steve’s life, that this Steve didn’t want him there. If Steve had wanted Bucky, he would have chosen him, but he didn’t, and Bucky would respect that choice if it killed him.

“How long do you think?” Bucky asked, after a moment of silence.

“Bucky,” Sam said, softly, “if you’ve been in love with him since the ‘40’s, he deserves to know. I think he’d want to know.”

Bucky laughed at that. “If he wanted to know, he wouldn’t have gone back. He wouldn’t have left me.”

“Or maybe if he knew, he wouldn’t have left.”

It was then that Bucky realized he was crying. He didn’t know at point in this dreadful conversation it had started, but it was happening now and there was nothing he could do to stop the tears.

“Sam, I get that you’re trying to help both of us, but I think you go be with Steve, while you still can.” All Bucky knew how to do was push people away.

Sam walked over to Bucky, wrapping his arms around him in a hug and saying, “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

They stood for a while, embraced in a half a hug, while Bucky stood motionless, tears still freely falling from his eyes, wondering what he ever did to deserve a life like the one he had gotten. Bucky did not know where they would go from there, but he was sure Sam had a plan, probably one he wouldn’t really approve of.

Bucky barely finished that thought before Sam was letting go of him and speaking again. “Look, I’m not saying I think you’re making the right decision, by avoiding Steve, because I don’t, but I understand now. I’ll figure out what to tell Steve about why you won’t come, but you have to promise to at least think about talking to him, alright?”

Bucky nodded. It was the only confirmation he could give that did not feel entirely like a lie.

-

He did think about talking to Steve. Every day. Every minute. Every second of his life was consumed with thoughts of Steve. Of what could have been if only his feelings were returned, if Steve had been happy with him, if he had been enough. 

He had convinced himself that he was not going to see Steve, that no matter how much it hurt, Steve had moved on and so should he. But he could not, could never, move on. 

He supposed that was something the two of them had in common. 

Against his better judgment, he ended up at Steve’s nursing home. He did not know how he even knew which one it was, probably overheard Sam say the name during one of the many times he tried to persuade Bucky to go visit. Those attempts had stopped as soon as Bucky revealed the real reason he was not going, and he had to admit that he was grateful to Sam for that. 

Lightly knocking on the door to announce his presence, Bucky faced his biggest fear and walked into the room, finding himself face to face with Steve, for the first time since they said their goodbyes and Steve had willingly left Bucky’s life. 

“I didn’t think you were coming,” Steve said, after he realized Bucky was not going to be the first one to speak. 

Bucky stared the ground, unable to make eye contact and accept what was standing, well, sitting, before him. “I didn’t think I was either.” 

“Sam told me you were upset about me not being able to save you when I went back. You have to know that if I could have, that would’ve been the first thing I did, but I couldn’t mess up the timeline. I’m so sorry,” Steve said. 

God bless Sam Wilson for coming up with a lie that was believable enough to sound true while being harsh enough to prevent any more questions from being asked. It was too bad that Bucky could not just leave things like that, say it was alright, and go home. 

“That’s actually why I’m here.” 

Steve watched Bucky, waiting for him to elaborate, to yell at him, to call him selfish. It never came.

“I wasn’t avoiding you because I thought you could save past me. It’s taken a while, but I’ve accepted everything that happened to me, and I’m doing my best to work past it.”

“Then why-?” Steve interrupted.

“Please just let me get this out, then you can ask questions or kick me out or do whatever you want,” Bucky could barely breathe. He knew if he let Steve talk instead of just telling him everything as soon as he could, he would end up leaving the room without saying what he came here for. “The reason I’ve stayed away since that day in the forest is because I’m in love with you, and I’ve been in love with you since before I even knew what love was and realizing that you would never be happy in a world with just me in it hurt too much to face.”

Silence. The only thing Bucky could hear was the ringing in his ears. He did not know why he expected the moment he revealed his biggest secret to be some earthshattering spectacle, but he definitely thought it would be more than this. He was still unable to even look at Steve, had no idea how his friend, or the person claiming to be his friend despite the fact that he had lived an entire life without him, was reacting to it. He was not sure he actually wanted to know. Still, if Steve could say something, anything, to let Bucky know if he hated him now, that would be much appreciated.

“No, you’re not,” was all Steve could say. 

“W-What?”

“You’re not in love with me. You can’t be. Remember all those girls from back in Brooklyn, even right before you shipped out? If you had been in love with me, you wouldn’t have gone out with them,” Steve reasoned.

This was not happening. There was no way this way this was happening. Steve was not ignoring what Bucky confessed to him using this logic. Steve would never accuse Bucky of lying about his feelings.

Then again, this was not Bucky’s Steve. This was a different Steve, a new Steve, a Steve who had not spent seventy years trapped in the ice while the world moved on. This was a Steve who was able to move on with the world. A Steve who sat back and watched the Cold War, the civil rights movement, Vietnam, the feminist movement, the gay rights movement, 9/11, and did nothing because not changing the timeline was more important than the people who were being hurt by it. This was a Steve who let Bucky fall off a train, who let Bucky be taken by Hydra, who let Bucky be tortured for the better part of century, who did not mean it when he said, “’til the end of the line.”

“Steve, I’ve known that I was gay my whole life. Those girls, every single one of them, were just helping me keep up appearances because I was doing the same for them. I understand if you’re mad at me or if you hate me, but please don’t try to tell me what you think my identity is. I’ve had enough experience with people trying to take that away from me, and I really don’t need it from you too.”

“Ok, I’m sorry. Let me start over,” Steve said. “So, you’re not jealous that I went back to the ‘40’s and had a happy life, you’re jealous of Peggy?”

Oh god, Bucky thought. Here we go.

“No, Steve, I’m not jealous. I always wanted you to be happy, and I knew that would never be with me. I’m not stupid. Even if I was worth loving back, we could’ve never been together. Not in the ‘40’s when we would’ve been killed for it or even before you went back, when the world knew you as Captain America and me as the Winter Soldier. I made my peace with that long ago. The reason I’ve stayed away for so long is because every time I look at you and see you as you are now, I’m reminded that for nearly a hundred years I’ve loved you everything I have, but that wasn’t even enough to make you think our friendship was worth saving.

“So no, I’m not jealous, and I never have been. Not from the day we walked back to camp, and I saw how you and Carter were looking at each other and definitely not now. I’m glad you got to live your dream. It’s just, the Steve I knew, the Steve that was my best friend in the entire world-“ best friends since childhood bucky barnes and steven rogers were inseparable “-wouldn’t have left me for a ‘what if’. He would’ve stayed here and helped people because god knows the world’s in chaos after having billions of people return out of thin air. But you didn’t stay, because you’re not him, and you stopped being him the moment you decided that returning to the past was more important than staying here and doing what was right. Than staying here with me.”

Steve sighed. Bucky still had no idea what to expect from this Steve, but he expected more than a sigh.

“Bucky, I’m so, so sorry for everything. If there was a way for me to make this right, to make you happy, you have to know I would do it. I would do anything for you, but I had to do something for me, too,” Steve finally said.

“You’re not listening.”

“Then make me listen! I want to understand, and I want to help, and I don’t want to lose you for however long I have left.” Steve was begging at this point.

“I don’t care that you were doing something for yourself! You’ve sacrificed so much for everyone else, and you deserved to be happy. I care because you didn’t care about me, or about Sam, or about any of the other people who were in your life! I care because you thought the only way you could find that happiness was by going back to the past to be with a woman who had a full life without you in it. I care because I know I’ve never been worthy of you, but I never, ever, thought that you would prove me right.”

Bucky wanted to leave. He wanted to leave and never come back. He wanted to run away and never be found, just like he had after pulling Steve from the Potomac all those years ago. Bucky wanted to forget he even knew Steve, but there would always be the reminder of what could have been, if Steve had stayed.

Steve clearly wanted this conversation to be over, too. This what likely not what he anticipated his talk with Bucky to end up like, and Bucky would probably never know what Steve had actually wanted to tell him.

“Look, Bucky, I know nothing I say can make all of this better, but, believe me, I wish it could. You did so much for me back when we were kids, and I’ll never have anyway to repay you,” Bucky tried to cut him off, but Steve kept talking, “I guess I’m not ‘your’ Steve, because you’re right, I have lived an entire life without you, but I spent every single day thinking about you and how much I wished I could go help you. I sat through dinners with Howard knowing what his fate would be and meetings with Pierce-“ Bucky flinched at the name. “-knowing that he was rebuilding Hydra right under me, and I couldn’t do a thing, but the hardest part was knowing where you were and what you were going through and knowing there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. You were always the most important in my life, whether you believe that or not.

“You were never unworthy of me, it was always the other way around. There was no way I could have ever even imagined being a better person than James Buchanan Barnes, and I’m not. You’re so good, Bucky, and you don’t even know it. That’s why we couldn’t have been together, even if I did love you that way. Because I did, and still do, love you, and that’s why you need to move on. You need to find someone who’s worthy of you, who’s worthy of your love, and never let go of them. You need to happy, and I’m sorry that won’t be the way you wanted it to be, but you deserve it. You deserve it more than anyone.”

Bucky let out a choked sob and realized he had been crying, again. He was pretty sure he had done that more in the past two months than he had in the entire rest of his life. “How am I ever supposed to find someone else? You were the only person that knew about the Winter Soldier and didn’t think I should’ve been executed for it.”

“Bucky,” Steve said, softly, “can you look at me, please?”

Finally meeting Steve’s eyes, Bucky saw an intensity he had not seen since the days he had to save Steve’s scrawny ass from back alley fights with men twice his size. 

“Five years ago, half the people on the planet turned to dust. You came back, and you helped stop the monster that caused of all that. You’re a hero, and everyone knows it now. No one sees the Winter Soldier anymore, they just see you, for who you are and who you’ve always been.”

“I hope you’re right,” Bucky mumbled, wiping his eyes.

A light knock on the door caused both to turn. A little boy with blonde hair and blue eyes that looked just like a kid Bucky knew a lifetime ago walked through the door, followed by a woman with the same air of confidence of his lost best friend. Bucky knew it was time to leave. He did not belong there, not when Steve’s new family, a family that would never include him, was there.

“I should probably leave,” Bucky said, walking toward the exit.

Steve nodded, knowing there was nothing he could to convince him otherwise, no way to try to integrate Bucky into the new life he had built. “If you ever want to come visit again, please know you’re always welcome. Always. 

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I wasn’t lying about you deserving happiness,” Steve continued, as Bucky was halfway out the door. “You always deserved it more than anyone.”

Bucky took a final look at Steve. “That means more than you’ll ever know.”

-

Days went by, life moved on, but Bucky did not know how to. He spent most of his time thinking about he told Steve, what Steve told him, and whether or not he should have even bothered seeing his friend. He thought it was probably for the best, to walk away knowing that Steve wanted him find happiness, he just did not know where to even begin looking for it.

He found the website for the Smithsonian. The website with the pictures from their old Captain America exhibit, pictures of Steve and the shield and the Commandoes and Bucky. He wondered how much of him, after everything, was still the man staring back at him in those pictures, and how much of him was a different person altogether. 

Sam found him like that, staring at pictures of the life he lost. “Anyone ever tell you to get a life?”

Bucky kept his eyes on the screen. “Once, not sure I should listen to him, though.”

Somehow, Sam knew who Bucky was talking about. He had never told him about his visit with Steve, but Sam knew anyway. “I think he wanted what was best for you when he told you that.”

“You know, Wilson, I think you might be right.”

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @avengercarol


End file.
